It was created in 1969 as a private research project in AT&T's Bell
Laboratories by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. The interface--and I use that
term loosely--was "borrowed" from Honeywell's MULTICS (which comes from
MULTiplexed Information Computing System). The Bell guys also borrowed the
naming concept to create UNiplexed Information and Computing System, which was
originally spelled "UNICS."

"Uniplexed" would imply "one" to the multiplexed "many," suggesting that Unix
was meant to be a single-user operating system. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Almost every design decision has been aimed toward making Unix a
multiplexed, multi-user OS.

This an introductory course in operating systems
concepts. Check the course catalog entries for more information about
CS 438.

You should be a proficient programmer and have a working knowledge of basic
algorithms and data structures. The prerequisites for this class are
Computer Science 286 (Computer Architecture I) and 305 (Computer
Algorithms I).

The course is divided into four three-week sections, with each section covering
a major part of an operating system. See the syllabus for details.

The class meets in
Howard Hall 522 on Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:00 p.m. to 5:50 p.m.
There will be no classes on Wednesday, 22 November.

R. Clayton, Howard B-13, rclayton@monmouth.edu, 732 263 5522. Office
hours are
Wednesday noon to 1 p.m. and Thursday 11 a.m. to noon in my
office. I'm also usually happy to talk to you any time you can catch me;
setting up an appointment is recommended, see my
schedule for details.

There will be four tests, given at the end of each three-week section; see
the syllabus for the schedule. Tests will be given in class, and are closed book
with no notes; calculators and computers will not be necessary. The tests are
cumulative, covering everything taught up to and including the class before the
test. Tests should take no more than an hour to complete, and will be given in
the first half of the class. Test answers will be made available off the syllabus.

There will be four programming assignments, one for each three-week section;
see the project description for details.

There are no mid-term or final exams; for those that need them, mid-term grades
will be computed as the straight, unweighted average of the test and
programming assignment grades completed by the mid-term.

The final grade is a straight, unweighted average of test scores and
programming assignment grades; that is, there are eight grades total - four
from tests and four from assignments - and each grade constitutes one-eighth of
your final grade.

I use the usual grade ranges:

95

<=

A

90

<=

A-

< 95

86.6

<=

B+

< 90

83.3

<=

B

< 86.6

80

<=

B-

< 83.3

76.6

<=

C+

< 80

73.3

<=

C

< 76.6

70

<=

C-

< 73.3

60

<=

D

< 70

F

< 60

All grades are kept with one digit of precision to the right of the decimal
point and 0.05 rounded up. No grades are adjusted to a curve; that means that
89.9 is a B+, not an A-.

This is a programming course, and you will be writing C++ programs. It is
probably a good idea to have on hand a book about C++ programming. If you're
going to buy a book, I recommend the C++ Primer, third edition, by Lippman and
Lajoie (Addison-Wesley, 1998). The department uses C++ How to Program by
Deitel and Deitel (Prentice Hall, 1998) in its programming classes, and you'll
be o.k. if you have or can borrow a copy to use.

You should feel free to send me e-mail. Unless I warn you beforehand, I'll
usually respond within a couple of hours; if I don't respond within a day,
resend the message.

Mail relevant to the class will be stored in a
hyper-mail
archive. If your message is of general interest to the class, I'll store it,
suitably stripped of identification and along with my answer, in the archive.

People who need assistance or accommodations above and beyond what is usually
provided in class should contact the University's ADA/504 coordinator to get
those needs met. See me or the
Disability Services page
for more details.

I have no class attendance policy; you may attend class or not as you see fit.
However, I hold you responsible for knowing everything that goes on in class;
"I wasn't in class for that." is not an acceptable excuse for a wrong
answer, or for giving no answer at all.

My attendance policy applies only to lecture attendance; it does not apply to
other kinds of attendance which may be required for the course. Repeated
failures to meet the attendance expectations set for tests, meetings, projects,
labs or other forms of course work will have a bad influence on your grade.

Monmouth University does have a class attendance policy, which you can find in
the Academic Information chapter of the Student Handbook. To the extent that I
need to keep the record straight, I will take attendance. Attendance lists,
however, are entirely for the University's benefit; I will make no use of them
in grading.

Cheating's not nice; don't do it. Anyone caught cheating fails the course.
The chapters on Academic Information and the Student Code of Conduct in the
Student Handbook describe academic honesty and how it can be violated.

I recognize and encourage a student's sacred right to complain about their
grade. There are, however, a few rules under which such complaining should
take place, and those students who don't follow the rules will be less
successful in their complaints than those students who do follow the rules.

First, the only complaint that matters is that something got marked wrong when
it was actually right. When you come to complain, be prepared to present, in
explicit detail, what it is you did and why you think it's right.

Second, complaints about a particular test or assignment are only valid until
the next test or assignment is due; after that point the book is permanently
closed on all previous test or assignment grades.

Assignments must be turned in by their due date; assignments turned in after
their due date are late. You should contact me as soon as possible if you need
to negotiate a due-date extension. The longer you wait to negotiate, the less
likely it is you'll be successful; in particular, you have almost no chance of
getting an extension if you try for one the day before the due date, and you
have no chance of getting an extention on the due date.

A late assignment is penalized five points a day for each day it's late. I use
a 24-hour clock running from midnight to midnight to measure days; note this
means that an assignment handed in the day after it's due is penalized ten
points: five for the day it was due and five for the next day.

There may occasionally be a conflict between taking a test and doing something
else, particularly among those working full time. If you're going to be out of
town, or on jury duty, or whatever, on a test day, let me know beforehand and
we'll discuss a make-up test.

A make-up test must be scheduled to be taken by the date of the test following
the missed test (or the final exam if you miss the last test). If a missed
test is not made up by the time of the next test, you get a zero for the missed
test.

There will be only one make up given per missed test. If more than one person
misses the same test, those people will have to coordinate among themselves to
pick a mutually agreeable date for the make up.